


Complicated

by katiecorn



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV)
Genre: F/M, Olaf is the father of Kit's baby fix-it fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 13:46:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17366981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiecorn/pseuds/katiecorn
Summary: Kit Snicket finds herself trapped with a man she both loves and loathes.





	Complicated

People are complicated--a word used here to mean "frustrating, confusing, and filled with intense and often conflicting emotions."

It stands to reason then that relationships are even more complicated, because a relationship requires at least two people. A person in a relationship will often find themselves twice as frustrated, confused and conflicted as they were on their own.

It is therefore entirely possible for two people who love each other to end their engagement, or for those same people to meet again and run in opposite directions, when in fact they want nothing more than to run into each other's arms.

That was how Kit Snicket felt when she last saw Olaf.

And that is how she feels now, when a low and familiar voice says, "Hello, hello, hello."

Kit looks up at once. "You!"

"Me," Olaf says with a flourish, as though he stands upon a stage and not inside a cold, metallic vault.

"Where's Phryne?" demands Kit.

"The security guard?"

"What did you do with her?!"

Kit had assumed the best when she found the guard post empty; it was a stroke of luck, a chance to open the vault whose code she had worked so hard to crack, and pilfer the deposit box she'd worked so hard to locate.

Now Kit only fears the worst.

"I took her out," Olaf growls, and Kit's heart stops inside her chest. The box she came for no longer matters; if Phryne is tied up somewhere or, perhaps, suspended above a pit of lions, there may be time to save her--

But then Olaf grins a very strange sort of smile, a smile both playful and wicked. Such a smile used to send thrills through Kit, like little jolts of lightning through her hands and scalp.

It still does.

"To a rather lavish and expensive restaurant," Olaf says. "All she needed to abandon her post was a little fine dining and a promise to split the check."

"Did you?"

"No."

"Villain," Kit sneers.

"Volunteer," he snaps back.

"Arsonist!"

"Accomplice!"

Kit rolls her eyes, but otherwise she makes no response. Her mind is racing; with Phryne out of danger, Kit can focus instead on the heist at hand. Only Olaf stands between her and the vault door; she need only slip past him, run down the hall, out of the bank and into her conspicuous but rather well concealed escape vehicle--

"You realize I can't let you leave here with that."

Kit follows Olaf's gaze to the file in her hands. No doubt it is why he came--if not to stop her from taking it, then to retrieve it himself.

Again, her mind races. Again, their eyes meet.

"I'll stab you with my hairpin," she says. She's done it before.

"I'll garrote you with my shoelace," he replies, actually leaning down to tug one of them free. His gaze never breaks from hers.

For a long moment, they stand in perfect stalemate. Then, slowly, impossibly, a smile tugs at the corner of Kit's mouth. Like Olaf's, her smile is strange and playful--but there is no trace of wickedness.

Only sorrow.

"You don't want to hurt me," she whispers.

"But I will," he whispers back. He looks away just for a heartbeat--if she'd blinked, she wouldn't have seen him do it at all. "You don't want to hurt me."

"But I will."

And so here they are again, dangerously close to killing each other. Maybe this time, they'll succeed.

Behind Kit is a table. Upon it sits the empty deposit box; underneath it, a metal wastebin. Without looking, Kit sweeps her leg and slides the wastebin between her and Olaf.

The villain flinches. He brandishes his shoelace like a knife, but it betrays all the terror of a wet noodle--assuming that noodle was standard size.

"What is that?!"

"A trashcan," Kit answers. "Or, more precisely, a compromise."

She holds out the file, suspending it neatly above the bin.

"Do you have a light?" she asks.

Of course he does.

Olaf draws from his pocket an old, brass lighter--the kind meant for cigarettes but, in this case, more often used on houses, unflattering photographs, and confidential documents. The top flips back and two clicks later a little flame dances between them. The corners of the file catch ablaze, and Kit drops it into the wastebin.

So many secrets, now lost forever. So much knowledge kept out of good and noble hands--but out of villainous ones, too. Kit can live with this sort of compromise. She's been doing it all her life.

Olaf stares into the fire. He's transfixed by it, beholden to it, fascinated and frightened all at once--and Kit wonders, for one horrible, terrible instant, if she kicked over the wastebin and set him aflame, would he be more likely to laugh, or scream?

"Let's go--" she tries to say, only to hear a blaring alarm instead.

Behind Olaf, the vault door rumbles and begins to close. Kit suddenly remembers the automatic timer; left open too long, the vault seals itself, locking all valuables, villains and volunteers inside.

The latter two scramble for escape. Kit darts around the flaming wastebin and Olaf flails wildly--but without laces in his shoes he trips, colliding with Kit and sending them both to the ground. They're still intertwined when the vault door slams shut.

The jolts of lightning have returned to Kit's scalp. She'd forgotten just how long his arms are, and how perfectly they fold around her. She catches the scent of soap and too much cologne--he must have cleaned up for his date.

It's not entirely repugnant, being this close to Olaf. Still she pushes him away, cheeks blazing; first from embarrassment, then annoyance, when she realizes that he is just as eager to distance himself from her.

"That's not good," Olaf says. He brushes the front of his coat for reasons Kit cannot fathom; it looks just as frayed and threadbare with or without a few wrinkles.

"It locks from the outside," she agrees.

"Which security guard has first shift in the morning?"

Kits meets his gaze and raises an eyebrow. He knows the answer.

"Phryne," they say in tandem.

Olaf groans and tilts back his head. "Nooo... What if she makes me pay her back for dinner?!"

At this, Kit cannot help but laugh. It is not a mocking sound, merely an exasperated one.

"There are worse things," she says, rising to her feet.

"Easy for you to say! You didn't see how much wine we ordered!"

Kit wanders to the back of the vault. The fire in the wastebin has died down--nothing remains of that precious file but ash and a hint of smoke. She lays her hands on the table; if she were alone, she would have allowed herself to sink into it; she might have even allowed herself a few tears.

Stealing the vault code; befriending Phryne and memorizing her coffee breaks; planning the heist of secrets that were not Kit's to take; all of these were wicked things to do. They were wicked things whether or not she was caught doing them, and yet, somehow, they were easier done when she didn't have to look anyone in the eye.

"Are you alright?" Olaf calls from behind her. His voice is oddly strained, as if he regretted the question before he even asked it.

Kit turns completely and folds both arms around her middle. Olaf is still on the floor.

"Tomorrow, when that door opens, Phryne will assume that I conspired with you to plunder the vault."

"Is that so far from the truth?"

"I suppose not. But Phryne is a good person-"

"If 'good person' means 'lousy security guard.'"

"-and I would hate for her to think ill of me."

Olaf rolls his eyes, as if Kit's nobility is an annoying habit, one he'd grown weary of long ago. He folds his hands behind his head and lays backward, making himself comfortable on the floor. "Plenty of people think ill of _me_. It's not as terrible as you'd think."

"Aren't you worried at all about what happens when that door opens?"

"No."

"You could go to jail."

"We both know that no one who deserves to be in jail ever goes there."

He says this so bitterly that Kit fully straightens. Her arms drop and her chin rises; she walks with utmost purpose to Olaf's side and towers above him.

"Olaf."

"Hm?" His eyes are closed, as if he means to fall asleep right there on the floor.

"I want to tell you something, and I want you to look at me when I say it."

Olaf cracks open one eye. He peers up at her for a long, silent moment, before rolling to his side. Anger spikes through Kit because she thinks he's rolling away from her--but no, instead he rolls into a sitting position; cross-legged, hands on his knees.

Kit's anger melts into anguish. She'd assumed he would stand. Seeing him like this, bent down low before her, his eyes bright and unblinking, as if he's afraid of what she might say--

He'd looked at her just like this when he asked her to marry him, and the weight of that memory brings Kit to the floor.

She mirrors Olaf exactly; legs crossed, hands on her knees. She takes a long, steadying breath.

"The Baudelaires are dead."

His expression doesn't change. There's no regret, nor pain, nor sorrow--but there isn't glee, nor malice, and in this Kit takes no small amount of comfort.

"I know," he says at last.

She wants to ask him something, and she can see, in the tightening of his jaw, that he's waiting for her to ask it.

"Did you--"

"Is that what you think?"

She wants to chide him for throwing the question back at her, but they both know that it doesn't matter how he answers. What matters is if she believes him.

He's set many fires. He's killed many people; people who annoyed him; people who angered him; people who stood in his way. Kit believes that he's done a great many terrible things, and she believes that one day, he may do them again.

But does she believe that he killed the Baudelaires?

He'd wanted to. He'd _promised_ to. His attempts on Beatrice's life were as numerous as they were inventive; he'd thrown her from a rooftop; slipped thumbtacks into her tea; trained crabs to chase her down the beach.

But all of that stopped the moment Beatrice became a mother. For the last fifteen years, she's been safe from him; or at least, safe enough to live in the same city. Safe enough to raise her children within his reach. She must have believed Olaf incapable of creating orphans--and in her heart, Kit still believes the same.

"No. No, I don't think you did."

"Then you still know me after all."

Relief floods through Kit; but with it, a sharp stab of grief. She covers her mouth with a trembling hand.

"Do you know if the children--"

"They're alive," Olaf says miserably. "When I read about it in the paper, I went to the Baudelaire mansion. I wanted to see the wreckage for myself. Beatrice's brats were there with some buffoon from the bank."

At this, Olaf is undone. His shoulders sag and his frown deepens, as though there is no greater injustice than the survival of three innocent children. Kit's hand falls away from her mouth.

"Do you wish they'd died?!" she asks, incredulous.

"This world doesn't need more orphans."

"I'm sure they'd rather not be orphans--but given the choice, I'm equally sure they're glad to be alive!"

"Are they?" Olaf sneers. "Being an orphan never made anyone in this room very happy."

Kit jolts, and Olaf seems to realize, instantly, that he crossed a line. She's been an orphan far longer than he has, and the story of three siblings left homeless and parentless by a fire matches her story much more than it matches his.

"Maybe they've improved the Orphans Shack," Olaf mumbles. He reaches for Kit's hand--but pulls back before he touches it. He picks at his cuff instead.

Kit shakes her head. "They won't go to Prufrock Prep. The Baudelaires had many friends and family; the children will be sent to their nearest living relative."

Olaf's gaze turns distant and contemplative. Through his shiny eyes, so quick and clever, Kit can see a mind twice as so, and it is concocting something. Ideally, a plan for escape.

His gaze slides back to hers.

"Can I ask you something?"

Kit's mouth twitches, almost like a smile. "Only if I can ask you something."

This kind of compromise--the kind where secrets are shared, not burned--this kind, Kit isn't used to at all. But she likes the idea of it. Olaf nods his head in agreement.

"Are you happy?" he asks.

She almost says no. She almost says yes. She almost tells him, _I'm seeing someone_. All of these things would be true, but all of them would hurt him, and she never, not once, meant to hurt him.

"Happiness is like sunshine," she replies. "No one can have it all the time, but it always comes around again."

"Like a pack of roaming lions," Olaf grins.

"You mean a 'pride.'"

"Bah!" Olaf tries to swat away his error like a gnat, and Kit laughs. Actually laughs--not exasperated or exhausted, but delighted.

She remembers a schoolboy with sharp features and one long, slender eyebrow. This boy, too, sat cross-legged on the floor, and Kit cross-legged before him. They both had a book spread across their laps; the story of two foolish children who thought love could conquer fate and tragic circumstance.

_See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!_ the boy said. _Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!_

_Ay me_ , Kit sighed.

_Yes, you're you_ , the boy replied, breaking character, and Kit laughed. He really was a terrible actor, but he captivated her all the same.

This, like the memory of Olaf's proposal, robs Kit of all strength. It is impossible to be near him without such memories; it doesn't matter if they stand back-to-back, side-by-side, or on their heads. They've known each other so well for so long that they've stood, sat and danced in every possible configuration. She cannot make a new memory of him without an old one to mirror it.

"Go on," Olaf says. His voice pulls her back into the present. "Ask me your question."

Kit looks down to her hands.

"When you heard that Beatrice was dead... Did it make you feel better?"

This is an unfair thing to ask--unfair, and unkind. But she wants to hear him say no. She wants to hear him realize that no amount of vengeance or villainy will ever, ever heal the anger and anguish inside of him.

"A little, yes."

Oh.

Oh, yes. Of course.

Kit is surprised to find herself smiling. She blinks hard, as if to keep tears at bay, but they never come. Her face is dry. She isn't sad, she's just... incredibly, incredibly....

Relieved.

She knows now that she will always love him. This realization should have frightened her; it's a frightening thing, loving a man determined to burn down the world you live in. But no matter what he does or how dark his path becomes, her love for him will never fade. It will morph and change, burn bright and grow cold--but it will never go away completely.

This is a relief to Kit because the truth is that she has been waiting a very, very long time to fall out of love with him. There are things she has not done, things she has not allowed herself to have because she wanted to do them without loving Olaf, as if loving him would taint anything new.

But that love will never go away. She'll carry it with her, always. Armed with that certainty, she can move forward. She can love someone else, marry someone else; she can put out fires and steal secrets and read books and drink wine because her choices are to live her life and love him, or love him and stand still.

Kit sighs. Her strange smile--a little playful, but mostly sad--returns as she rests her face upon an open palm.

"You wicked man," she says. "You wicked, wonderful fool."

Olaf crinkles his brow, offended--though it's not clear which of those words he takes offense to. His eyes roam the entirety of her face, before they settle on the hand cradling her chin.

His brow smooths out once more. His gaze turns soft and distant, and Kit can tell that he doesn't see her as she is, but as she was long ago. When he speaks, his voice is low and far away.

"Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand... That I might touch that cheek."

Olaf covers her hand with his own. His fingers overlap hers so greatly that his thumb falls somewhere below her eye.

"I wish we could go back," he whispers.

"We can't go back," she replies. "And we can't go forward."

"So where does that leave us?"

Kit shrugs. She closes her eyes, savoring the warmth of his palm. "In this room, I suppose."

"Mm," Olaf hums. "Not a bad place to be, this room. There's no forwards, nor backwards. Just here and now."

Kit meets his gaze. She raises her free hand; it trails up his arm, his shoulder, the long column of his throat and to the back of his head. She pulls him closer, resting his brow squarely against hers.

Again they are a mirror imagine, sitting in a way they've been before but are very unlikely to ever be again.

"We'd better make it count."

One kiss. One kiss so gentle and so terribly forlorn that Kit's heart aches from want of it. This kiss ignites a fire inside of her; not the kind of fire contained to a wastebin, small and easily extinguished, but the kind of fire that rages through a house, changing the lives of its occupants forever.

That sort of fire ended the life of one Beatrice; this fire gives life to a second.

But Kit does not know this. She will not know it for several weeks, and in this exact moment she is glad to find herself inside a vault, a place where secrets are kept safe. Olaf's kisses, Kit's sweet words, his hands in her hair and her breath in his lungs; these things are locked away like a precious file, like shining jewels.

In the morning--at least, Kit assumes it is morning, for her timepiece has always been accurate--Kit admires how peaceful Olaf looks when he is sleeping. Only like this does he seem content; the wickedness of the world washed away.

She wakes him with a kiss.

It isn't romantic. It's rather rude, in fact, to kiss someone without permission. But still, Olaf smiles--that strange, half-playful smile.

"I'm not a princess," he says.

"Perhaps not," Kit replies, preparing herself to stand. "But nevertheless, the spell is broken."

Olaf catches her wrist. "I'm going to do that to you. One last time, before we die. I'm going to kiss you awake."

Of course they escape when the vault opens. There was never any real doubt of that. For a brief moment they run side-by-side; out the door and down the hall, their feet falling in perfect rhythm. But when they burst, at last, into the streets of the city, they go their separate ways. She to her life, and he to his.

Kit runs to her conspicuous but rather well concealed escape vehicle. At the door, she can't help but turn around.

Olaf steals the hat and scarf off a passerby, fashioning a makeshift disguise. Kit watches him until he disappears into the crowd entirely, and not even the most acute, well-trained eye could spot him.

He was probably joking, when he promised to kiss her one last time.

She hopes he wasn't.


End file.
